John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: September 29

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: September 29

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Famine and Pestilence

2 Samuel 21; 2 Samuel 24

When Saul was disclosing to his courtiers at Gibeah his suspicions against David, he used these remarkable words: “Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields, and vineyards, and make you captains of thousands and captains of hundreds?” 1Sa_22:7. That is—Whether they fancied that David would do for them what he had done, or meant to do? But the question comes, where did Saul get lands and vineyards to distribute among his servants? Not by conquest from the neighboring nations. The domains of the Amalekites were too distant, and it does not appear that he retained them in possession. At home all the lands were appropriated among the tribes and families of Israel, and could not be acquired even by purchase. This was the first reign in Israel, and there had been no treasons which could have placed at his disposal the forfeited estates of traitors. His own property does not seem to have been considerable; and he could hardly yet have ventured to take the private estates of his subjects by force from them. There was only one available source that we can see, and from what now transpires, it is likely that he availed himself of it. The Gibeonites having filched a covenant of peace and safety from Joshua, were, out of regard to the oath that had been taken, secured in the possession of their towns and lands, on condition of their discharging, by certain of their number, all the menial services of the tabernacle. It would seem that Saul viewed their possessions with a covetous eye, as affording him the means of rewarding his adherents, and of enriching his family, and hence, on some pretence or other, or without any pretence, slew large numbers of them, and doubtless seized their possessions. It is said that he did this “in his zeal for Israel and Judah,” and this cannot be explained but on the supposition that the deed was done in order to give the tribes possession of the reserved territories of the Gibeonites. And there is no doubt this would be and was designed to be, a popular and acceptable act. From the first, the people murmured greatly at the covenant that had been entered into, mainly, it would seem, because they were thus deprived of the spoil of the Gibeonites, and of cities and lands situated in the most desirable part of the country. This feeling, in all probability, strengthened as the population of Israel increased, and land, especially in this quarter, acquired increased value. As one of the towns of this people was in Judah, and three in Benjamin, when they were destroyed out of their cities, none but persons of these tribes could pretend to any right to them, and they no doubt originally had them, and probably willingly undertook the task of turning out the Gibeonites at the point of the sword. Thus, Saul’s zeal for Israel (Benjamin) and for Judah appears; and thus also, by their complicity in this gross breach of ancient covenants with a now harmless and faithful people, who for many ages had been Israelites in faith and practice, they laid themselves open to punishment from Him who abhors iniquity and broken faith, and to whom the innocent blood cries not in vain. It would seem that Saul’s own family must have been active in this cruel wrong, and had a good share of the spoil—for we find them all, when reduced to a private station, much better off in their worldly circumstances than can else be accounted for, especially as Saul’s own estate had gone with the crown, until assigned by David to Mephibosheth.

But the punishments of a just God for wrong-doing, whether in nations or individuals, though often delayed, come at last—often when, from lapse of time, the wrongdoers think themselves secure in the possession of their blood-stained gains, and that all danger is past. It was so in this case, if, as some suppose, the transactions which follow did not take place at an earlier period of David’s reign, and are set down here with other miscellaneous matters, as a sort of appendix, interposed before the account of the close of David’s life.

There came a famine of three years’ duration. If the time be indicated by the place which the chapter occupies, David may reasonably have ascribed it at first to the recent commotions, during which the labors of the field had been neglected, or less sedulously pursued; and probably, the well-stored granaries he had established throughout the country, prevented the scarcity from being very severely felt during the first and second years. But when a third year brought matters to a famine point, David began to see something extraordinary in this succession of bad seasons, and, as became him, consulted the oracle of the Lord. He was answered, that it was because of the wrongs done by Saul to the Gibeonites. “Because of Saul and his bloody house”—a phrase which seems to show that the family of Saul was particularly active in this evil matter, and had stimulated him to it in expectation of the benefits they might derive from the spoil, seeing that three-fourths of the property of the Gibeonites lay in their tribe.

On hearing this, David applied to the remnant of the Gibeonites to learn what atonement would satisfy them for the cruel wrongs they had sustained. Their answer was vindictive—blood for blood—the blood of Saul’s house. The price of blood—no silver or gold, would they accept. They would have life for life, as avengers of the blood of their own slain. The claim of blood revenge holds good for any lapse of time, or into new generations, and is never cleared till the representatives of the offenders—the next of kin, have paid the fatal price. We have seen that the law of Moses retained this ancient principle of rough natural justice, while striving to ameliorate some of its evils; but, among these Gibeonites and the other persons of Canaanitish origin, the practice seems to have lost less of its original severity than among the Hebrews, and to have been as rigidly carried out as it is at this day among the Caucasian mountaineers, or among the Arabians—although the latter do more frequently accept “the price of blood” than the former. The answer of the Gibeonites implies their feeling that the Hebrew nation, as such, by its sympathy and concurrence with Saul, had sinned against them—and they seem to regard it as an act of moderation on their part, that they waived their claim as against the nation, and restricted it to Saul in the persons of a few of his representatives. “We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house; neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel…. The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, let seven men of his sons be delivered up to us, that we may hang them up before the Lord at Gibeah.” The Gibeah which they proposed to make the scene of this tragedy, was the very town in which Saul had held his residence; and which was no doubt chosen by them, to make this act the more monumental. David dared not refuse their demand. He gave them seven of Saul’s descendants. They were two sons of Saul by Rizpah, the same concubine respecting whom Abner had offended Ishbosheth, and five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul. David was determined to save Mephibosheth and his sons for Jonathan’s sake, and it was probably out of respect to this feeling, that the Gibeonites did not insist upon the inclusion of these—the rightful heirs and representatives of Saul. One would think this fact a sufficient answer to those who venture to suspect, that the whole matter was a contrivance between David and the priest to get rid of the remnant of the house of Saul, of whose remaining influence in the land, the late commotion had made him apprehensive. If this were the case, how came he to cut off only collateral branches, and spare all those in the direct line of succession to the throne? In this point of view, Mephibosheth and his son Micah, and his four sons (perhaps already born) were those from whom there was most danger to apprehend. Yet these were spared by preference, when there was actually an accusation of treason lying against Mephibosheth, which, however confounded, might, if David had wished to get rid of him, have furnished, even without the intervention of the Gibeonites, a plausible ground for cutting him off. If the reader turn to 1Ch_8:33-34, he will find an enumeration of the descendants of Meribaal or Mephibosheth, heirs of the house of Saul—exhibiting, perhaps, the most numerous descent from any one person of the age in which David lived.

If it be asked—and it has been asked—Why vengeance was exacted rather for this slaughter of the Gibeonites, than for Saul’s greater crime, the massacre of the priests at Nob? the answer is, that the people, and even the family of Saul, had no sympathy with or part in this latter tragedy, which none but an alien could be found to execute. But both the people and Saul’s family had made themselves parties in the destruction of the unhappy Gibeonites, by their sympathy, their concurrence, their aid—and above all, as we must believe, by their accepting the fruits of the crime.

Yet, although this be the intelligible public ground on which the transaction rests, it is impossible to withhold our sympathy for these victims of a public crime in which it is probable that none of them had any direct part. They were banged up at Gibeah: and the Gibeonites, contrary to the practice of the Hebrews themselves, left them upon the gibbets till their bodies should waste away. This was bad policy in them, to say the least, as it could only exasperate the Israelites, who, however, under the circumstances, dared not interfere between them and their allowed vengeance. But there was one whose true womanly, motherly heart, would not allow her to quit her sons on this side the grave’s brink. This was Rizpah, the mother of two of them. She fixed her abode upon the rock, under the shadow of these dangling, blackening corpses, and watched them with vigilance, and “suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.”

It seems to have been some time before this touching instance of maternal devotion came to the knowledge of David. When he heard of it, he felt himself bound to interfere to prevent the continuance of a scene so distressful, and so revolting to the feelings of the Israelites. He caused the remains to be removed; and, obtaining the bones of Saul and Jonathan from Jabesh-Gilead, had the whole deposited, with becoming respect and honor, in the sepulcher of the family at Zelzah. The reader who recollects the strong desire of the Israelites, that their bones should rest with those of their kindred—as lately instanced in the case of Barzillai—will appreciate this mark of attention on the part of David, which must have been most gratifying to all Israel, and especially to the friends and connections of the house of Saul.

The last chapter of the Second Book of Samuel, is the recital of a most destructive pestilence. It is scarcely correct to say, as is usually said, that this was on account of David’s causing his people to be numbered. That was the immediate cause—for the procedure, innocent and even laudable in itself, and such as had in former times been undertaken by Divine command, originated in motives which the Lord condemned. But the ultimate and real cause is to be found in the verse which introduces the narrative, and which is almost invariably lost sight of in the common accounts of this transaction. It is, that “the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.” Now the anger of the Lord could only be awakened by unfaithfulness and evil-doing; and that, whatever its precise nature, was the real cause of the calamity that followed, and relieves the case of the apparent harshness, of which so much has been said, of making the people suffer for the offence of their king.

On this account “the Lord moved David to number Israel.” What? Did the Lord move David to offend, and then punish him for the offence? By no means. Let us turn to the parallel phrase in 1Ch_21:1. “Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel.” Now if we carefully consider these texts together, we shall see the meaning to be, that for the sins of the people, the Lord permitted the great enemy of mankind to have an advantage which would not otherwise have been allowed him. Still David was under no compulsion to yield to the incitement and that he so readily yielded, even when such a man as Joab could see the heinousness of the offence, and remonstrate against it, shows the evil state of his heart at that time. As usual with him, and indeed with most of us, calamity brought him to a sounder mind; and we cannot but sympathize in the piety and wisdom of his decision, when the choice of punishments was offered him through Gad the seer, of preferring three days’ pestilence to three years of famine, or three months of defeat and loss before his enemies. “I am in a great strait,” he said: “Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man.”